If you need information about the city of Philadelphia courts, you can place a telephone call or log onto their website—or you can “friend” the courts on Facebook, sign up for their Twitter feed, or receive alerts on your cellular phone. Philadelphia is just one of many court systems around the country that is adapting to the new digital age of law.

These efforts are not born simply from a desire to make the judiciary more accessible or to integrate new technologies into the courts’ functionality. Rather, they have arisen from a more complex and challenging set of circumstances: ever-growing caseloads and a chronic underfunding of court systems nationwide.